For our honeymoon we cruised on Carnival Imagination for four days to Cozumel. This is part of a series of anecdotes on the experience.

On our last day aboard, Carnival offered a “Behind the Fun” tour visiting all the crew-only areas of the ship to show how the magic is made. I couldn’t resist! The answer: it’s made through a lot of hard work.

We visited the galley, where a bar of baking chocolate as large as a desk literally and figuratively dwarfed everything else in the room. I ate some of it in the form of cake at the all-you-can-eat chocolate buffet later that day.

We visited the laundry room, where workers fed sheets into giant machines to be folded and ironed, in an endless progression. We tourists got to try our hand at the towel folding machine. As we giggled with goofy delight at seeing an unfolded towel enter, and then drop seconds later into a neatly folded pile, the crewmen’s eyes seemed to say, “You realize we get paid to do this all day, right?”

We visited the bridge, where one officer must always be looking out to sea, while others supervise an array of modern cartographic technology.

We visited the engine control room, where one whole wall schematically depicts the flow of electricity to various ship systems, with an enormous console filled with gauges and buttons and levers stood ready to run the entire ship if needed.

But surprisingly, the visit that’s stuck with me most was the ship’s stores: giant freezers stocked with meat, poultry, and seafood; a refrigerator the size of a large bedroom full of liquor and other beverages; and workrooms to prepare food for the galley. (For whatever reason, chopping vegetables and meats isn’t charged to the galley staff, but to the provisioning department.)

On opposite sides of the ship mirror freezers, thawing refrigerators, and prep tables process separately the poultry and meat headed up to the galley. Carnival has one supervisor for meat and another for poultry to ensure that no one person ever handles both.

In one room, a pair of crewmen cut fruits and vegetables, with boxes of carrots and cantaloupes piled around them and a work counter covered in bowls of freshly chopped ingredients.

And in one room — in the most staggering room — were potatoes. Boxes of potatoes piled high along every wall, with a diminutive machine in one corner to peel them, and a small work table in the center. They called the worker there Potato Man, and his only job is to cut potatoes.

Like all crewmen we met, he works ten hour shifts. Like all crewmen we met, he works seven days a week. And like all crewmen we met, he has a six month contract, and then two months off before the next contract.

So for ten hours a day, seven days a week, six months at a time, he cuts potatoes. He does not trade jobs, since Potato Man is his assigned position. He does not get to try his hand at chopping the occasional cucumber or celery stalk. He just stands at his post, reducing potatoes to edible sizes.

And when his boss introduced him to us as Potato Man, an unmistakably authentic grin spread across his face, and he gave us an enthusiastic thumbs up. He is the Potato Man on that ship, and he knows it.

Most of the crewmen we met had been working those long hours and weeks for decades with the company. And we tourists were there to get respite from a few months of grueling nine-to-five computer work.

They served hash browns at breakfast the next morning, and oh were they delicious.

For our honeymoon we cruised on Carnival Imagination for four days to Cozumel. This is part of a series of anecdotes on the experience.

We’re told cruising isn’t for everyone. Some people love it, while others vow never to return. We assume this family falls in the latter group, based on what we overheard from their table on our last day aboard — a “Fun Day at Sea” while we sailed back to Miami:

Mother: Today we have to stay on the ship all day.
Daughter (age 5): Why can’t we stop somewhere?
Mother: We have to get back to Miami on time.

Daughter: But why are we on the boat?
Mother: Because we have to be here for grandma and grandpa’s anniversary.

Oh, the noble sacrifice you’ve made for their happiness! Perhaps they took some consolation in the all-chocolate feast laid out just a few hours later. Nobody can be too miserable when they’ve got ten different pieces of cake in front of them.

For our honeymoon we cruised on Carnival Imagination for four days to Cozumel. This is part of a series of anecdotes on the experience.

Our ship stopped first in Key West, but we stayed aboard and enjoyed massages at the spa and other onboard luxuries. When we got to Cozumel, though, we raced to disembark as fast as we could say, “One giant bottle of water, please.”

Even walking down the deepwater pier toward the port at San Miguel, we marveled at being on foreign soil for the first time — discounting a visit to Montreal as “barely foreign at all”. Our eyes picked out every detail identifying this new place and making it distinct from our home. And what were the first signs we were able to read? Starbucks! Burger King! Welcome to Mexico.

Just beyond the pier is a small shopping district (“Cozumel’s only shopping mall”) catering blatantly to the cruise ship crowd. One or two men — exclusively men — stand outside each store beckoning passers-by to sample their wares. “Maps of the ruins! Rent a scooter to see the ruins!” were popular enticements. And my favorite was when we were caught leaving one store and skipping the next: “It’s my turn now! I have something different for you!”

A few stalls christened themselves “The Dollar Store” and tagged all their merchandise with hand-written $1 USD stickers. More legitimate businesses quoted prices in pesos, but every business on the island accepted pesos and dollars interchangeably.

If a stall wasn’t “The Dollar Store” it likely had no prices at all, making everything negotiable. When we saw one man selling woven name bracelets and spotted a “Sophie” in the mix, we asked for a price. $12. And a moment later: $10. And when we put it back down, $8.

And when we walked away and saw nine more men selling the same bracelets? $4. Welcome home, Sophie! We got you a bracelet in Mexico!

At the appointed hour we lined up for our tour of the Mayan ruins with our guide Mimi, and our group marched back through the shopping mall to our bus. The place was transformed. The pairs of men still sat on stools beside their shops, but nobody made a move or uttered a word. They know that nobody can entice even the weak away from a tour group.

The Mayan ruins at San Gervasio offered a chance to see and touch and explore history in a way no textbook photography or classroom filmstrip could ever emulate. Some of the forgotten history has been hilariously substituted with wild speculation (“we don’t know what this was, so it was probably ceremonial”); but when you see a rocky road stretching off toward the distant ocean, met at the town’s entrance by a great stone arch, its purpose is hard to misconstrue.

With the sense of ancient history comes also a sense of a truly different place. Rain forest surrounds the ruins on all sides, and more than a few iguanas lounged beside the path as we passed by (some eyeing the tourists with familiar indifference; others fleeing at the sight of us). Even on a cloudy day, the temperature was easily 90°, and only a potent insect repellant (evidently not available in the United States) kept the mosquitos from eating us alive.

Follow that historical adventure with an hour to read on the beach, sipping a “Coca-Cola Light”, and dipping our feet into the impossibly blue water of the Caribbean ocean, and we’ve got ourselves a vacation.